The Editorial Board

Let the American race begin

When Joe Lieberman was named Al Gore’s running mate in 2000, there was some discussion about the potential for America’s first Jewish vice-president. With the exception of the dustiest corners of the internet, the discussion was respectful and more curious than bigoted. It was probably less heated than the issue of America’s first Catholic president that came up when John F. Kennedy ran in 1960 and, because the Republican base is made up of a great number of evangelical Christians, probably even less significant than Mitt Romney’s Mormonism in 2012.

Now that Bernie Sanders is a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for this year’s U.S. presidential election, there has been almost no discussion of the potential for America’s first Jewish president; the discussion has been far more about the potential for America’s first avowedly socialist president.

After a seemingly interminable campaign, voting begins next week, launching the process of elimination that will determine the Republican and Democratic candidates for president this November. Voters in the first caucus state, Iowa, will gather in church basements and town halls on Feb. 1. In New Hampshire, eight days later, voters will cast ballots in the first primary of the season.

While American politics has always had many differences from European politics, the U.S. version this year seems to reflect, to some degree, the trend in Europe away from the centre. The Republican candidates are largely clustered on the right side of the spectrum, if not the far right. Donald Trump, the leading candidate according to polls, does not fit easily into ideological boxes, but his many very extreme comments appeal to at least some of the people we would describe as far right.

On the Democratic side, Sanders, an erstwhile low-profile junior senator from Vermont, who self-describes as a democratic socialist, is fomenting what is no doubt a very unwelcome sense of déjà vu for the once-presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Clinton was to be the unbeatable Democratic candidate in 2008, until an almost unknown senator from Illinois caught fire and bolted into the White House on a wave of reformist zeal. While not a single ballot has been cast yet in the 2016 battle, Clinton’s inevitability has almost evaporated.

What is it that explains Clinton’s inability to seal the deal, even with voters in her own party?

Part of the issue is her gender. How could it not be? If elected, she would be the first female president. But is gender an advantage or disadvantage for her? Perhaps it is both. Part of the challenge and opportunity Barack Obama faced was around his race. Whether race or gender are, in the end, advantages or disadvantages depends on a huge range of factors, including time and place, and the individual embodying them.

However, perhaps gender, race or religion will be less significant in this election because voters seem to be craving something different altogether. Even left or right may not be such key factors as (apparent) authenticity.

After decades in the public eye, Clinton is a consummate politician. Yet consummate politicians, even exceptional diplomats, are not what Americans seem to be seeking right now. Quite the opposite. American voters, in both parties, seem to be gravitating to unorthodox figures who do not follow scripts. Clinton seems both orthodox and tightly scripted.

Say what you will about Trump, his xenophobia and verbiage seem absolutely authentic. On the other hand, whatever Sanders’ ability or inability may be to get elected and then get any sort of socialistic agenda through Congress, his channeling of Americans’ economic realities and fears appears equally authentic. Both men have captured something in the zeitgeist that scripted politicians have failed to exploit.

And, while the Democrats and Republicans battle it out, a third option looms. There has been talk that, should the Republicans nominate Trump and the Democrats Sanders, a third-party candidate might emerge, appealing to wide swaths of the centre and chunks of both the left and right. Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg – a Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent – is seriously considering a run and will announce his intentions by March, associates told the New York Times. Imagine a three-way presidential campaign – with two Jewish candidates. That would be an authentic landmark.

Are good intentions enough?

The pope visited a Rome synagogue Sunday – the first visit to a synagogue during his papacy and a significant event in the context of inter-religious friendship. Pope Francis condemned violence based on religion and called on Catholics to rediscover the Jewish roots of Christianity. During the past half-century, relations between the Catholic Church and the Jewish community have made historical and immensely positive advances. Out of a history of bleak victimization based on Catholic teachings, the modernization of Catholic doctrine in the early 1960s reversed the millennia-old accusation of deicide and began a process of reconciliation that has been largely genuine and welcomed.

But, sadly, antisemitism – religious or otherwise – remains.

Recently released statistics say 2015 saw more Jews make aliyah from Western Europe than in any year since the founding of the state. Nearly 10,000 Western European Jews – 8,000 of them from France – made the move to Israel. While this level of aliyah will be heralded by some as a positive milestone, it reflects a dismal trend for Jewish communities in France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Belgium which, in that order, saw the greatest number of emigrants.

And the trajectory seems unlikely to abate, with Jews in the southern French city of Marseille now being advised by the leader of their community not to be seen in public with a kippah after a brutal assault on an identifiable Jew in that city and several years of similar violence across France.

In response, two women have started a social media campaign using the hashtag TousAvecUneKippah – everyone with a kippah. The idea is for everyone to don the traditional Jewish headwear as a gesture of solidarity and to confound those who would no longer be able to identify Jews to attack. This has resulted in some fun viral photos, such as a kippah on the Mona Lisa and another atop a model of the Eiffel Tower.

The idea that “we are all Jews” is an effort at solidarity and is a heart-warming and obviously well-intentioned move. It has some history, too. There is an apocryphal (that is to say, in this case, pleasant but untrue) story of the Danish King Christian X wearing a yellow star in solidarity with his country’s Jewish population during the Nazi occupation of his country. It is the sort of story that we wish were true.

Even so, there is a potential downside to claiming membership in an oppressed or victimized group. Middle-class North American university students wrap themselves in Palestinian keffiyas, thinking they are showing solidarity when to some it can have a whiff of blackface, of usurping the history of another.

Cultural appropriation can cut both ways. The idea that “we are all Jews,” as the kippahs-for-all idea seems to advance, has a potential to damage as well as heal. The pretense that “we are all Jews” could provide a licence to critique Judaism and Jews in ways that people would never dare with other ethnic or religious groups. If we are all Jews, after all, then antisemitism is little more than self-criticism.

Another not insignificant consideration is the fact that the world is not all Jews. Neither are we all Muslims (or Parisians or Charlie Hebdo or anything else). While such efforts at solidarity and support are well-intended, they also, in their way, betray a proud tenet of Canadian and other pluralist societies, which is that we do not gloss over or erase these differences, but celebrate and defend them.

Similarly, the pope’s efforts to exalt the Jewish roots of Christianity, seemingly well-intentioned, could be problematic. The fact that Christianity emerged as a Jewish sect has been a point of contention for 2,000 years. That a small group of stiff-necked people has refused to accept Christianity as a successor religion has caused outrage that has led to literally countless deaths over centuries.

The idea that we are all Jews is a nice one in times like these, but we should remember that such ideas have a double edge.

Mein Kampf and free speech

Adolf Hitler’s manifesto of hatred against Jews, Mein Kampf, went on sale last week in Germany for the first time since 1945. The annotated edition proved a bestseller, we hope because people intend to take a critical look at the ideas that drove their country to apparent mass insanity.

The reissue has been controversial, not surprisingly, but, as a practical matter, banning material these days is impossible. Mein Kampf is available to anyone with an internet connection, so the act of banning it in recent years has been a statement of principle rather than an effective means of keeping it from interested eyes.

Nevertheless, the book is an historical document that should not be hidden away. The ideas it contains were the seeds of one of humankind’s greatest atrocities. This suggests it has a power that those who would ban it justifiably fear. Yet, again, since banning it is not feasible, better that the opportunity be welcomed to analyze it and try to understand, confront and negate the ideology it represents, which is clearly the intent of producing a heavily annotated edition.

In fact, news of the book’s reissue has already sparked some welcome, thoughtful reflections on the nature of antisemitism, ideological hatred and also the matter of free expression itself. One lesson is that words matter. They have power. This is certainly the undergirding reason the book has been banned in Germany for 70 years.

It may seem a conflicted philosophical principle we have taken on this page for many years to stand firmly in the court of free expression – the right of people to express themselves free of undue constraints by governments, mobs or the threat of violence – while contending at the same time that people should police their own self-expression. It is not conflicted; in fact, it is a primary tenet of democratic, pluralist societies. It is the axiomatic idea that with freedom comes responsibility.

The proof that words matter is evident every time a Jewish person is stabbed in Israel. Palestinian society is being saturated by calls to kill Jews, including publications that demonstrate the most effective means of stabbing a Jew. Of course, Palestine is not a democratic, pluralist society where freedom and responsibility are sides of a coin, so this may be one of the reasons Western voices have for decades given a pass to rampant incitement.

But, tragically, we see it far closer to home. Some of the language around the arrival of Syrian and Iraqi refugees to Canada has gone beyond the realm of what most Canadians probably like to imagine is our tolerant, liberal approach to “others.” At a welcoming event for Syrian refugees in Vancouver last week, an individual pepper-sprayed people milling about outside the venue. It seems an act of such deliberate cruelty to undermine the confidence and well-being of people seeking a better life. It is impossible to know the precise factors that motivated this attack, but we can be fairly certain that some of the language used recently about refugees and Muslims did little to dissuade a person inclined to violence that such behavior was unacceptable. Donald Trump, according to opinion polls one of the people most likely to be the next U.S. president, has made obscene, inexcusable statements about refugees and Muslims. Such words do not fall on deaf ears.

We are at a time in human history where the very nature of words seems to be changing. Everyone can send their opinions out into the world in ways never imaginable even two decades ago. At the same time, long-form reading seems to be declining precipitously and we, in Western societies at least, may be forming our opinions more on bite-sized slogans than on deep consideration.

It’s hard to pinpoint what it means that the erstwhile banned rantings of Mein Kampf flew off German bookshelves. Hopefully it means people aim to use this annotated version to critically assess their country’s history.

Bright lights to end year

Canadians have been in an uncharacteristically self-congratulatory mood lately over our national response to the Syrian refugee crisis. The federal government has come through on behalf of thousands of people fleeing the catastrophic violence in Syria, with the prime minister and what appeared to be most of his cabinet showing up personally to greet the first arrivals. Perhaps more impressive still has been the mobilization of ordinary Canadians to sponsor and aid refugees, with synagogues, churches, community groups, neighborhoods and individuals stepping up to help. In contrast with the response from many in the world, including the Gulf states and divisive figures like Donald Trump, Canadians should be rightly proud of our collective response.

Certainly there are concerns among some Canadians about the newcomers. The idea that “radicalized” individuals could slip in under the guise of humanitarian status is frequently mooted. More likely is the potential that some refugees may carry with them ideas about women, Jewish people, gay people or others that are not consistent with this country’s norms. This is not something to gloss over. We should be aware of it and ensure that, along with our clearly demonstrated willingness to offer a heart-felt welcome to the refugees, we also model for them other Canadian ideals, including respect for difference. The fact that the groups sponsoring refugees are themselves representative of Canadian diversity should be a good head start in this regard.

The joyous welcome we have witnessed is an uplifting way to draw 2015 to a close. This has not been a year filled with happy news, yet the last few weeks have brought us several encouraging lights in the midst of the winter’s darkness.

In Paris last weekend, 195 countries made an historic step toward reining in the carbon emissions that are causing climate change. These two issues – refugees and the climate – are not unrelated. Scientists and other warn that if something significant does not change quickly, the world will be awash in populations struggling against each other for arable land, potable water and habitable space. It is a daunting prospect, put mildly, and events in Paris suggest the world may finally be taking the danger seriously. Of course, we have made false promises before. Again, we may have reached a moment of truth where the arc of history is bending toward repairing the damage we have done to the world.

There has been another very significant development in recent days. The rapprochement between the Jewish people and the Catholic Church that began five decades ago took a very major and substantive leap forward with remarks by Pope Francis and the release of a landmark statement by the Vatican.

Catholics, the document states, are obligated to demonstrate their faith in Jesus to all people, including Jews, but the Catholic Church “neither conducts nor supports” missionary initiatives aimed toward Jews. From the perspective of 2,000 years of Christian doctrine that situates the Catholic Church and Christianity as the preemptive successor religion to Judaism, this is a revolution. It is the antithesis of the sort of language and ideas that have caused incalculable strife for Jews in Europe and other primarily Christian lands. It suggests that the leadership of the church, once deemed infallible and all-knowing, admits that some things are unknowable. The Christian dictum that eternal life requires belief in and dedication to Jesus as the messiah is neither negated nor affirmed by this new statement, deeming it “an unfathomable divine mystery” that salvation can come only through Jesus while the church also affirms the biblical covenant between God and the Jewish people, the Vatican says.

“While affirming salvation through an explicit or even implicit faith in Christ,” the Vatican document says, “the church does not question the continued love of God for the chosen people of Israel.”

The Pope has repeatedly made friendly gestures to the Jewish people, rejecting millennia of hostility and continuing a trajectory of reconciliation begun in the 1960s with the Second Vatican Council.

These three developments – the welcoming of refugees to Canada, the recognition that we must care for our planet for its and our survival, and an historic reappraisal of the relationship between Christianity and Judaism – seem like pleasant things to reflect on as we close out a year in which bright lights are a welcome respite.

Ludicrous standards

Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallström has accused Israel of “extrajudicial executions” of Palestinian terrorists. The minister said, in the country’s parliament, that Israel has a right to defend its citizens, but went on to clarify that such defence should not include “extrajudicial execution” and accused Israel of a “disproportionate” response.

It is a familiar refrain from the European community, a place where Israeli products are being labeled as part of a boycott strategy, sometimes by vigilantes in makeshift uniforms patrolling shops and applying stickers to Israeli goods. Israel has a right to defend itself, in the world’s eyes, up to and until it actually begins to defend itself.

The issue is confused by some outside observers. It is true that Israel is a democratic state that respects the rule of law. But it is also a country at war with radical Islamist terrorism. There are, certainly, laws and judicial recourse for crimes, but when a murderous act is in the process of unfolding, the first objective of security forces is to end the situation. Certainly, the next objective should be ensuring that judicial process takes precedence by, for instance, shooting in the leg or otherwise disabling the attacker through non-lethal means. From half a world away, it is hard to judge the actions of frontline security personnel (or, at least, it should be more difficult than it seems to be) but we would hope that response is balanced with preservation of life and the addressing of crime through Israel’s admirable system of judicial oversight.

At the same time, we should be cognizant of double standards.

Remember just over a year ago, in October 2014, a terrorist murdered Cpl. Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial and then proceeded to Canada’s Parliament Buildings, where he was taken down, fatally, by the sergeant-at-arms, Kevin Vickers.

Vickers became a national hero. He was not condemned by the government of Sweden or anyone else. The Canadian government was not pilloried for “disproportionate” force or “extrajudicial execution.”

No, there are two sets of rules in this world. One set for Israel which, despite all the threats and existential challenges it faces, is expected to maintain the world’s highest standards – actually, ludicrous standards – of engagement, while everyone else gets a pass, including the tyrants whose governments currently sit on august bodies like the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Predictably and correctly, Israel’s foreign ministry lambasted the Swedish politician’s comments, dismissing them as “scandalous, delusional, rude, and detached from reality.”

“The [Swedish] foreign minister suggests that Israeli citizens simply give their necks to the murderers trying to stab them with knives,” the Israeli foreign ministry said in a statement. “The citizens of Israel and its security forces have the right to defend themselves. In Israel, every person who commits a crime is brought in front of a judge, including terrorists. The citizens of Israel have to deal with terrorism that receives support from irresponsible and false statements like that.”

The Swede’s comments are not unusual, although they are particularly flagrant. They are of a type we have seen repeatedly when Israel faces an upsurge in terrorism. The attitude it depicts reflects more concern for the murderers than it does for their victims. Rare is the word of support or empathy for Israel’s untenable position facing down individual terrorists incited by their government and society to stab, drive over or otherwise murder Jews.

The Swedish foreign minister’s words really speak volumes about where Europe’s sympathies lie these days.

The Chanukah lights

The nights were getting longer already, but when we changed the clocks a few weeks ago, it seemed to change very suddenly into a new season. For our cousins in

Israel, the days might be a bit brighter – a video of shirt-sleeved Tel Avivians dancing last week as an antidote to the terrorist mayhem was an inspiring and somewhat envy-inducing scene – but the spectre of violence there is real and immediate.

It was 68 years ago last Sunday that the United Nations voted for an independent Jewish state and an independent Arab state in Palestine. That was a day of jubilation, of momentous light, for Jews worldwide. Yet there is never total victory, never a moment when our enemies have permanently laid down sword, or stone or missile or knife.

In Jewish life, we light candles both to mark times of joy, as well as of grief. In Jewish rituals, the happy moments are tempered by the recollection of not-so happy moments.

At Chanukah, we light candles and curse the darkness. Hatred will not prevail. This is the message of Chanukah.

We see the darkness, but we do not succumb. We dance, as we saw in Tel Aviv. We give thanks for what we have, for the self-determination that is Israel and for the freedoms we enjoy in Canada. We rally ourselves and our neighbors to sponsor refugees and to raise funds for the Joint Distribution Committee to aid those who need it. Because we remember, or our parents do, what it is like to be refugees and to be in need. We advocate against climate change. We teach our children the values of tzedakah. We gather blankets and jackets for those in our own city who need warmth.

We will make our own light. We will celebrate not only our historical and contemporary victories, but life itself. We will love, laugh, dance, eat. L’chaim.

Proud of Canada votes

The last time there was a Liberal government in Canada, this country took a “go along to get along” approach to the annual Israel-bashing at the United Nations each autumn. Government officials offered excuses, but still our representatives at the General Assembly voted in favor of most of the one-sided attacks on the Jewish state.

Things changed when the Harper Conservatives came to office. They set Canada apart as a moral, often-isolated voice of reason in the bastion of anti-Zionists.

During the federal election this year, the Liberals promised that they would continue Canada’s support of Israel if they won the election. In their first significant test, they came through. This year’s General Assembly saw the usual raft of resolutions condemning Israel, while completely or largely ignoring the worst offenders of human rights in the world.

Proudly, Canada voted against them.

This is a very positive development, indicating that we will not slip into the ways of the past. As we had hoped, support for Israel – the only democratic regime in its region, a light to the nations in so many ways and, not insignificantly, the world’s only Jewish state – is not a partisan position, but a Canadian value.

Co-opting history

Tonight, the Canada Palestine Association, BDS Vancouver, Canadian Boat to Gaza, Independent Jewish Voices and a few other groups will come together to address the topic Stolen Land: First Nations and Palestinians at the Frontline of Resistance. The obvious intention is to equate the history of colonial settlement in North America, Canada in particular, with the actions of Israel toward Palestinians.

The concept is flawed at its core, of course, because, as the Palestinian narrative often does, it portrays the Jews as colonial occupiers of Arab land, while denying the legitimacy of ancient and modern claims to the Jewish homeland. The logical failure here is that such a narrative recognizes the legitimacy of a 200-year-old land claim, but not a 2,000-year-old land claim, which seems like an arbitrary position.

Nevertheless, there is a larger issue here. The anti-Israel movement insists on appropriating the historical experience of other people and using it in an attempt to fortify their narrative. The most obvious example is the apartheid libel, which tries to paint Israel as the ideological descendant of South African racism. This is offensive not only to Israelis. It debases the experience of black South Africans who suffered from genuine apartheid.

Even more egregiously, the anti-Israel movement routinely uses the imagery of Nazism and the Holocaust against Israel, attempting to equate the victims of the Third Reich with its perpetrators. This deliberate rubbing of salt in Jewish historical wounds is common and, as we discussed in this space last week, the objective is clearly to inflict pain rather than to resolve grievances.

This is a deliberate strategy of the anti-Israel movement, which apparently finds its difficult to make a legitimate case of their own and, therefore, co-opts the historical experiences of others. As another example, last summer, when people in Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere in the United States were protesting police shootings of young African-Americans, the “pro-Palestinian” movement attempted to infiltrate that movement as well, trying to portray Israeli soldiers and police in the same light as American killer cops.

The event this week has a similar purpose. Not satisfied to let Canada’s First Nations people tell their stories and have their experiences validated, the “pro-Palestinian” activists want to elbow their way in and demand that Palestine get equal time (at least).

An infinitely more constructive approach can be seen in the remarkable story of a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust who traveled across Canada as part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, sharing his story of survival and accomplishment after tragedy. (See the story “Survivors helps others.”)

There are ways to positively advance First Nations experiences, the Palestinian experience and the Jewish experience in order to create a more understanding and tolerant world. The organizers of this week’s event – and the anti-Israel movement more broadly – do not seem interested in that sort of progress, in that sort of world.

We stand …. together

There has been an outpouring of grief and solidarity since the terror attacks in Paris a week ago. At some point, though, people began to ask why there was not a parallel response to the terror attack the previous day in Beirut, or the sadly frequent but remarkably similar incidents in various flashpoints in Asia and Africa recently. And what about the ongoing knifings and vehicular attacks against Israelis? Are some victims more important than others? Are some acts of violence more justifiable?

For comfortable people in Western societies, the Paris attacks remind us that violence can come to where we live – even though we don’t live in a place normally associated with such mass killings. Yet losing a loved one is no less painful because you live in a war zone. We should not allow ourselves to become numb to murder simply because of where the victims live, the color of their skin, their religion or nationality.

But current events have become far more fraught because of the perpetrators in Paris. Early reports suggest at least one of the murderers entered Europe amid the throngs of legitimate refugees streaming in recently. This will have damning consequences for the millions of persons displaced by war in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere in the region.

And the violence has reverberated to Canada. A mosque in Peterborough, Ont., was set ablaze, almost certainly an act motivated by a disordered response to events in Paris.

We should stand with victims of violence everywhere, whether in Peterborough, Paris, Lebanon or Jerusalem.

Limits to free speech

Last week, a Quesnel man was found guilty of criminal hate speech for anti-Jewish postings to his website.

Arthur Topham’s RadicalPress website is packed with the kind of “commentary” you have to read to disbelieve. Many of us imagine we know the sorts of slanders being purveyed in the dusty corners of the internet. You can’t imagine.

In addition to his own material, Topham has made it his side-business to repatriate from the crevices of discarded ideas and republish some of history’s forgotten anti-Jewish hate literature.

Topham was found guilty by a jury under Section 319 (2) of the Criminal Code, which pertains to “Every one who, by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, wilfully promotes hatred against any identifiable group.…” He will be sentenced next year.

The law does not go so far as to demand proof of incitement to injure or kill. Yet, among other gems, Topham’s postings call for “the extermination of Israel and all Jews.” In his defence, Topham’s lawyer insisted his client does not actually hate individual Jews. Indeed, he told court, Topham’s wife is Jewish.

Canada’s hate laws are controversial. Where to draw the line between fair comment in a free society and that which is to be criminalized is a very difficult balance. Generally, it is best to confront hateful ideas in the marketplace of ideas and to give them enough air that we can know they exist, and not drive them underground where they can corrode into even worse words and deeds.

This case was addressed under criminal law and not by the quasi-judicial human right apparatus, which is a far more dubious medium. Limitations on free expression should be limited to the most extreme and egregious offences. Indeed, this is the first criminal conviction for hate speech in British Columbia since 2006, so it is a rebuke that is reserved for the most heinous offences.

A democratic society expresses its values in its laws. Incidents like this, which meet the standard of intolerable expressions of hate, are a message from and to our society about what is fair comment and what is not.

On the whole, however, we prefer that our society express its commitment to equal treatment and cross-cultural respect in the context of our civil discourse – in our education system, in the free exploration of contentious issues, in the vocal condemnation by the many of any egregious offences by the hateful few. And that is what we do. In the most extreme instances, our society has agreed to a legal proscription.

Topham’s case will send a message, although it is already being rejected by his advocates as the demolition of free speech in Canada and as the manifestation of Jewish power.

As a society, we should accept the court’s verdict, but also rededicate ourselves to the promotion of intercultural respect. Comments under the story in the local Quesnel newspaper, almost unanimously of the “Jews control the world” variety, suggest we still have a long way to go.